New Straits Times (Malaysia)
25 Jul 2006
ABOUT 60 years ago, the signatories to the Genocide Convention agreed to resist and punish the perpetrators of the mass massacre of innocents whose only crime was that they belonged to the "wrong" national, ethnic or religious group.
While the convention established a consensus that genocide was a monstrous evil, uncovering the sinister crime was never going to be easy, and the process of bringing the wrongdoers to book was bound to be fraught with difficulty.
Nevertheless, the inordinately long time it has taken to get the oldest pending genocide case off the ground must surely be one for the books. More than 30 years have passed, but none of the people behind the killing fields in Cambodia have been hauled before the courts and punished.
Cambodian and international prosecutors have only begun work this month, nine years after the idea of an international tribunal was first broached, and after more than five years of heated wrangling between Cambodia and the United Nations.
So ponderous has been the turning of the wheels of justice that when the actual trials begin sometime next year, Ta Mok the "Butcher" will not be in the dock, having died in Phnom Penh, where he had been detained for the last seven years.
That leaves only Kaing Khek Iev, a.k.a. Duch, in custody. Since the notorious prison boss is 64 years old, there is less danger that the Grim Reaper will beat the public executioner. But the same cannot be said of the other senior and sickly henchmen of Pol Pot who are in their 70s and 80s.
Standing in the way of justice is not only their age but also their immunity from prosecution for deserting the Khmer Rogue. With many members of the Pol Pot regime having defected on the understanding that they would not be prosecuted, and with many occupying positions of authority and influence in the Government or the military, it is not clear whether those ultimately responsible for the barbarous extermination of the estimated 1.7 million Cambodians will ever be called to account for their hideous crimes.
This seems to be a classic case of justice delayed, justice denied. But it is not too late to make up for lost time. While it would be a case of closure and finally laying to rest the ghosts of a brutal past for the Cambodians, for the rest of the world it should be a case of making amends for standing silently on the sidelines for so long.
While the convention established a consensus that genocide was a monstrous evil, uncovering the sinister crime was never going to be easy, and the process of bringing the wrongdoers to book was bound to be fraught with difficulty.
Nevertheless, the inordinately long time it has taken to get the oldest pending genocide case off the ground must surely be one for the books. More than 30 years have passed, but none of the people behind the killing fields in Cambodia have been hauled before the courts and punished.
Cambodian and international prosecutors have only begun work this month, nine years after the idea of an international tribunal was first broached, and after more than five years of heated wrangling between Cambodia and the United Nations.
So ponderous has been the turning of the wheels of justice that when the actual trials begin sometime next year, Ta Mok the "Butcher" will not be in the dock, having died in Phnom Penh, where he had been detained for the last seven years.
That leaves only Kaing Khek Iev, a.k.a. Duch, in custody. Since the notorious prison boss is 64 years old, there is less danger that the Grim Reaper will beat the public executioner. But the same cannot be said of the other senior and sickly henchmen of Pol Pot who are in their 70s and 80s.
Standing in the way of justice is not only their age but also their immunity from prosecution for deserting the Khmer Rogue. With many members of the Pol Pot regime having defected on the understanding that they would not be prosecuted, and with many occupying positions of authority and influence in the Government or the military, it is not clear whether those ultimately responsible for the barbarous extermination of the estimated 1.7 million Cambodians will ever be called to account for their hideous crimes.
This seems to be a classic case of justice delayed, justice denied. But it is not too late to make up for lost time. While it would be a case of closure and finally laying to rest the ghosts of a brutal past for the Cambodians, for the rest of the world it should be a case of making amends for standing silently on the sidelines for so long.
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